I have to laugh at the choice of foil as a light-blocking agent. It makes me think of tin-foil hats!

Note to self: Stop by the store for tin foil on the way home from work.

Funny, just yesterday I mentioned to my husband your idea of Tin Foil in the windows. He kinda looked at me like I was crazy. Those pescy Aliens are ALLLLL the way over here in NJ too!! BAY-STARDS!!

That's IT, I'm doin it...Husband approval or not!!!

Forget the kids rooms. I'm thinking of doing it in my room. Was up at 7 Saturday and Sunday bloody sun. Huzzah, for the 8:15 sleep in. Don't think I'm not jealous cause I am!

Wow, I need to do that for my cats. Not that Leta is like a pet... But my two cats start watching the birds the moment the sun comes up, and the best viewing window is in our bedroom.

Tin foil has so many uses! I never knew it could block out sunlight, though! I could have saved a lot of money on eye masks and thick curtains if I had known that.

At first, I must admit I thought this was a tad strange, to put foil in the windows. But then I realized it was no more deceiving than me adding water to the apple juice or buying veggie burgers for our 4 year old and telling him they are regular hamburgers. Sometimes, we have to lie to our kids for their own good. And if it gives us a good chuckle in the meantime, what is the harm in that? I so need to give this hint to my sister, whose 15 month old daughter denies sleep until the point where she goes crashing headfirst into a wall from exhaustion. You, Heather, are a genius.

Scratching her underarms with your toothbrush, huh? Mine does the opposite--he unscrews the lid of my deodorant and sticks it in his mouth. MMmmmm lavendar.

Anyway, enjoy the sleeping!

When my ex hubby was a kid, he thought that foil on windows meant that the people inside the house were doing the nasteeeee.

Why did he think that you ask? Not even he knows.

This is a man who wakeboards naked by the local country club.

I have a son with this man.

Oh, what the future holds for me as a mom...

When I was little, my parents made me a clock and told me that I couldn't come out of my room until the big hand was on the 12 and the little hand was on the 6.

Why did this work?

Because the clock was paper.

The big hand was never going to get to the 12.

The little hand was never going to get to the 6.

I'm not sure how long this worked, but it definitely did work for a while.

PS: 6 a.m. is considered "late sleep" around the Zahlaway household. 8:15 sounds like noon to me.

Child rearing isn't in my near future but I feel confident that with your non-conventional approach (i've been taking notes)raising kiddos is going to be easy, or at least fun as hell.

This trick is usually discovered after birth of 2nd child, when parents are too tired to worry about ruining First Born's Spirit by putting amy limitations on said child's physical world. In reality, Sleep solves so many spirit-crushing problems. We graduated from the foil to light-blocking pleated shades.

By the way, after a few days of the dark room, Miss Smarty-Pants is going to figure out that dark room doesn't mean it's still night. We had a few nights of little ones stumbling around in the wee hours, but eventually everyone started sleeping through the night. For awhile. Then the night terrors started. Then we had to limit reading to non-scary bedtime books due to nightmares. I spose that 6-year molars teething pain is next. It's always somethin'!

Oh, the things we do for a little extra sleep. I've been known to tickle Nathan awake to prevent a nap, just so he'd sleep longer that night...

sleep is the nectar of the gods, I can't wait to use this trick! WOOT!! rock on, Armstrongs!

Ah tinfoil on the windows. Reminds me of the fraternity house. It's a wonder my wife ever married me.

Isn't tin foil an invention of the gods? Works great for the two little boys that won't sleep in the summer, 'But it's still day time!!' and at keeping them asleep until 6 am, because that feels later than 5:55 am.

I would happily wrap anyone or anything in tinfoil that tried to come between me and being asleep at 6:00 in the morning.

I will have to try this soon I think, My son currently does not have any windows in his room - it's fantastic, but we are moving in a few months. I didn't even think of sunlight even being a factor in his sleep - he is 14 months old and goes to sleep at 4:30 pm and wakes at 6:00 am - now that I am thinking about it I deffinately will have to something about the sun!

Yah, but what are you going to do about The Black Helicopters?

And Dude, you can moonwalk first thing in the morning!? I'm lucky if I can shuffle forward in a reasonably straight line. That dance tape you have must be some good stuff.

Yeah, I live in Alaska and when I was a kid, it got dark after 10 pm and light again at about 3 am - really screwed up the body clock. Foil is a mommy's best friend! My kids are 3 and 4, and old enough for me to say "Go back to your room until I tell you it's time to get up." Sometimes they just play quietly, other times it doesn't work. There is nothing wrong with deceiving a 2 year old; they need their sleep just as much as you do!

Blackout curtains (drapes) do the same thing...but the tinfoil probably has added defence from aliens, if you read believe certain conspiracy magazines. haha

It's all for her PROTECTION. And of course, your sanity. Brilliant!

Dear lord, what a wonderful idea. I'll keep that one in the back of my brain for when my little one wants to rise with the sun.

Strange - I have to impose a similar technique for my husband. Yes, I just said my husband. He's always waking up at 7 am on the weekends. I couldn't take it anymore and finally covered the windows in black posterboard. He now makes it to about 8:30 before he decides that I must wake up and hang out with him. I can't imagine what he was like when he was Leta's age.

GENIUS! I'll definatly use that on my future little ones.

Hey, The armpit IS much better than the really hard to reach itch...caused by her diaper.

OMG!!! Lucy gets me up every morning at 6am now too. You have given me hope.

Hmmm! Only one problem, Lucy doesn't wear diapers. Is it ethical to put your 9 week old puppy in a diaper?

we solved this problem by dressing up a mannequin to look like a really creepy clown and placing him under our son's bed so that just his head stuck out.... we then told him that if he got out of bed before 8 o'clock the clown would get him. it works great! in fact, some days he doesn't get out of bed at all...

belated birthday wishes to Leta by the way...

OMG...Im' This Many, the clown under the bed is priceless.

Brilliant...and timely too. After spending one of my first nights in my new apartment, I've come to realize that the sun is INTENSE around 9:30am (something I've never realized since I'm usually up long before.) Was contemplating those blackout shades but this is a MUCH easier, much more crafty solution. Thanks!

I never would have thought of this. Which is why I haven't slept past 7AM in eighteen years, possibly. Damnit.

(starting to realize the source of the kid's translucent skim-milk tomed skin)

My parents just taught me that the earlier I woke them up, the sooner I lost control of the remote...

(starting to realize the source of the kid's translucent skim-milk toned skin)

My parents just taught me that the earlier I woke them up, the sooner I lost control of the remote...

My husband has lived in our current house for about eight years - so he lived there for several years with a bunch of his old college buddies before I ever met him. He (and the house) have changed/matured so drastically over the last several years that the neighbors just assume we are a nice new couple that moved in recently. Back in the "college buddy" days, one of his friends/housemates had completely covered his bedroom windows with tinfoil in order to be able to sleep off hangovers, etc. after many late nights of partying.
In a recent conversation, one of our (apparently gossipy) neighbors informed us that those "Evil Boys" who used to live in the house were actually GROWING POT in that upstairs bedroom (described with wide eyes in a scandalous whisper) - because, you know, the only way to acclimatize a room for pot-growing is to cover the windows with tinfoil...
She also proceeded to tell us many other scandalous stories of the "Evil Boys" - during which we did our best to feign shock and incredulity, because WE would never act like THAT.

Ahh... The breaking down the tyranny of twos. Can you help with ours that wants to sleep horizontal between us?

The question then becomes why tin foil and not black out blinds?? I suppose the alien story is not nearly as interesting if you don't use the tin foil!! :-)

I'm so going to try that. My daughter gets up way to early on the weekends. I like the moon walk visual.

fantastic idea.
genius in fact.

Being that we live in Alaska... where the sun will shine for what seems like 24 hours in the summer... the tinfoil on the windows is very much a stylish decor. Goes so well with the curtains...

You rock, Heather.

(As if you didn't know.)

~Jaime

Oh my god, I wasted so much money on black out fabric for my bedroom windows.

sigh

You are the Martha Stewart of blocking out the sun.

Bah - I wish this worked on my kid!! He (23 months old) wakes up at 6am no matter what. When we flew to England recently, he didnt skip a beat and woke up at 6am England time. Now that we're back home? 6 am. NOTHING works, and I wish you the best success in this - may she keep it up!

Ahhh. Brings back memories. I can almost recall the fragrance of desperation in the morning.

When my son was a baby, my ex wife and I (together at the time) just got used to being on different schedules. I had night duty. She had day duty. I'd rent movies to watch as I rocked him to sleep at night. Thankfully, when he started sleeping through the night he slept in until 8am at the earliest.

Must look fantastic from the outside. Exterior shot?

There HAS to be a "You Might be A Redneck" joke floating around here SOMEWHERES.

We had tin foil over our WHOLE house...of course, we lived in a mobile home.

We used to put tin foil on our 2 boys' windows. Then I was worried the neighbours would think we were running a grow op :)
So, I now have taped up thick black construction paper.
Not a single pinoint of light is allowed to come through their windows.
You do what you gotta do!

It's a great tactic.

When she's a lazy, no-good college student home on a break, partying all night and sleeping all day, just remember to check the windows to make sure she didn't use the tin foil trick as a method of foiling your plans (pun, get it?) to wake her up at a decent hour.

You can start practicing now "Young lady, what do you think you're doing sleeping until past NOON? Get UP and do something productive with your day. Your father was up at 6 and he's already built a new addition onto the house. And me, well, I've already heaped a week's worth of motherly guilt on your 20 year old shoulders. Thank me already, will you?"

Whomever coined the phrase "You have plenty on time to sleep when you're dead" had no children. And tin foiled windows.

When my sister was pretty little she was having reocurring nightmares that were beginning to make her afraid to sleep at all. One night, however, she woke up and told us that she needed to put tin foil on her bed to fend off the monsters. My mom wrapped a strip of tin foil around her bed post, and after that my sister never had bad dreams. It's pretty strange, and I suppose the tin foil use isn't quite the same as Leta's, but it got the job done none the less.

And here I thought tinfoil was only good for making hats and blocking out the alien voices. *smacks forehead* Little did I know it was also good for the body snatchers.

wooo-hooo! Victory Dance, indeed. ;-)

Pure Genius!

The (perhaps mentally disordered) lady who used to stand around my old university campus wearing a metal colander on her head (lined with tinfoil) who ranted about "people stealing her brain waves and replacing them with "evil" radio waves" and handing out brochures proving it would surely approve.

So, you can add the "anti brainwave stealing" properties to your list of benefits tinfoil brings, right below alien death ray protection.

Sometimes a mom has to do what a mom has to do. I convinced my daughter that we couldn't get out of bed until seaseme street was over (8:30 am back then). That way, I could sleep while she watched. God bless the electronic babysitter.

Does anyone else waste away their days here reading the home pages of the people that comment? Or am I just so pathetically obsessed with Dooce I have to stalk her readers as well?